Ember
by queen-peletier
Summary: The plan is to reunite Rick with Judith and leave well enough alone. She burns everyone she cares about, after all. [Spoilers through 5x02. Heavy Angst.]


**Warning: Spoilers up through 5x02. Also, this is Angst with a capital A. [Sorry not sorry.] Enjoy!**

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><p>There's a fire in her veins.<p>

It starts with a single step away from the gunshot that changed everything. There's a sharp pain in her foot the instant her boot strikes dirt, refusing to look back at the little girl she once called daughter. The .38 round reverberates through the forest, echoing in her mind just like it did that day at the barn, complete with the quiet _thump_ of yet another too-short life falling in a heap at her feet.

With each stride the fire in her bloodstream flourishes and grows, not stopping until the flames overtake her very nervous system, until she loathes the instant replay burning away at her retinas. Until nothing remains but a vague emptiness where her heart used to be. Everything is left uneven, _broken _in its wake _–_ from the shattered earth beneath her feet to the bruised air pounding in her lungs when that familiar stench of gunpowder refuses to leave her be. But it's not until she finds herself tripping over solid ground somewhere around the fourth playback that it takes everything she has to resist staying down, just for a little while. Just until everything feels okay.

But then, it never will.

Tyreese hurls twice before they even grab the bodies, and for one tiny mili-second Carol loathes that, too. Wishes for one selfish instant that her own body would do the same and her stomach would become just as fragile as her mind. But the nausea does nothing more than curdle in her stomach, where it remains, sickening from the inside out. So she pats Ty on the back, comforts him, pretends to ignore the gunpowder and the vomit and the graves and the bodies.

But she can still smell those sweet pecans lingering on his breath.

And so, with every wavering footstep from those three, four-foot graves, a chorus of self loathing takes place of the rot forming at her insides. It swells and careens with every footfall, expounded by the company she keeps.

Some alive. Some dead.

By the time her feet find Terminus its guarded walls are a welcome distraction. She doesn't know what's to become of her after she saves them, so she doesn't think of it. Adds it to the the ever-growing list of failures she's accumulated this past month. On her list of wrongs to make right.

Someway. Somehow.

It works. At least enough that her rescue mission becomes a distraction in more ways than one. Enough that the embers deep within her soul dull and fade, preoccupied by the fight and the gore and the horrible stench drenched upon her skin. Enough that she's focused, wholly and completely, for the first time in months, and the thrill of it all breathes sweet, fresh air she hasn't tasted in weeks.

Enough that she saves a life instead of taking one.

But then she sees the smoke – the black, still-burning smoke – of a blazing hot fire and remembers.

It burns. Everything just _burns_.

The plan is to reunite Rick with Judith and leave well enough alone. She burns everyone she cares about, after all. Too many have died at her hands, and she won't be responsible. She _can't_. They're better off without her, far away from her and her tainted blood and her fiery veins.

But all expectations fly out the window the minute she sees him. The ache fades with alarming speed, replaced by a nervous fluttering she hasn't felt for a lifetime. Since before. His unexpected presence throws her off balance, off plan, and every clear-cut move comes to a screeching halt when he sees her. Their gazes lock for a second too long and she thinks he sees. He _knows_. But then he's running to her at a million miles an hour and it's everything she can do to stay upright and composed and calm. His touch is so enveloping, so gentle, so warm in a new, inexplicable way so different from the heartache she's been harboring. It's a fond, light feeling she thought long since dead and forgotten, buried in the wake of this pressing new fire aching her body and overtaking her soul.

But the longer she's nestled within those strong, warm arms, the less she wants to remember why she deserves the hell she's been given.

And that is simply too dangerous a road.

So she removes herself. Ducks out a little too early, volunteers a little too quick. Ignores the inevitable questions, and keeps them focused on the task instead. Anything to avoid those curious eyes, those gentle touches. She escapes all but Daryl, who surprises yet again with gentle persistence. He stays by her side, adamant and firm but still just as soothing as those few short hours ago. She refuses to speak, to tell him how broken she is, how empty and bent. If she starts, she'll never stop.

And he can't fix her.

His presence does help, though. If it weren't for him she would have been gone a long time ago. Wouldn't have stayed at all, in fact. And he makes her smile again, a rare feat in and of itself, so she plays back. Allows herself a moment to lapse back into what they used to be. What she wishes they could be. Wishes for a thousand what ifs, to make it all real. To reverse time and take it away. The ache, the burn, the fire. To erase it all and only remember this moment, here, with him. Comforting her and making her smile and convincing her to stay. To start over, together, if only she'd let him in. If only she could.

If only she didn't burn everyone she ever cared about.

She tries to leave that night. Or contemplates it, anyway. Starts the engine, sets the stage, but lingers at the threshold. Pauses when she considers him. Thinks about what will happen to him when she leaves, how upset she knows he'll be. If he'll ever forgive her for this. If he'll never forget.

But then she doesn't have to wonder because he's standing there, asking. He's wondering, too.

She doesn't bother lying; she's past the point. All the lies and the secrets and the heartache come tumbling out in one breath, one simple sentence. She knows he doesn't understand her full meaning, he can't, she hasn't told him, but he doesn't yell either. Doesn't get upset at all. Simply ushers her back with a wave of his arm.

To start over, she knows.

But just as she's about to accept, to talk, to tell him all the reasons why he shouldn't forgive her, a black car in an even blacker night drives by, and everything is rushed motions and hushed shouts to get in the idling car and _go. _

It's Terminus all over again: a welcome distraction from the fire still boiling inside, threatening to overflow. But when the seconds become minutes and there's still no sign of progress her mind starts to wander. Backpedal. The logic of the last twenty minutes creeps back into her bones with agonizing slowness, dulling her senses and her fight and her everything.

But mostly she thinks it's too dangerous to be here with him. To allow herself to imagine and wish and hope he'll still be here, by her side, when she inevitably speaks of the gunpowder and the vomit and the graves and the bodies. When she tells him of the wrongs she can never make right, about the fire burning in her veins, torturing her soul.

Because she loves him. And she knows now he'll be her downfall. That no matter which way this talk goes, her heart will break under the weight of it just the same. That she can already feel herself slipping, desperate to believe the utter conviction in his tone when he pleads for her to start over. Together, with him. Together, never apart.

She doesn't know which is worse, really. The thought that he'll follow her, side by side, to whatever fiery hell awaits her.

Or the thought that one day, she'll burn him, too.


End file.
